If you have a Top 10 or Top 5 or however many for games you played in 2024, what are they and do you have a spoiler-free description? They didn’t have to release this year, just what you played in 2024.
I played so much this year, my entire list is all Japanese games, mostly JRPGs. I wrote a mini-review for each, you don’t have to but a short description would be cool (spoiler free for folks who might still want to play it) Here goes a wall of text:
- Persona 3 Reload - Even after knowing the story because I played P3 Portable, this was the game that meant the most to me and I’m glad I got to play it at this point in my life. The game is back-heavy so you may not feel it up front but yeah it’s something special. Awesome and interesting soundtrack. Tons of great, weird and yeah some dumb side stories too haha.
- Metaphor: ReFantazio - Arguably should be #1 because it’s just an insane level of quality. An improvement over every Atlus game I’ve played, awesome and interesting soundtrack. Great characters. Shoji Meguro soundtrack rocked me. I love the slow themes and of course the crazy chanting tracks.
- Octopath Traveler II - I am the #1 Octopath Traveler stan and this game hitting Xbox healed a piece of my soul. Beautiful, I love HD2D and I doubt I’ll ever get sick of the style. Some of the characters I thought were boring won me over by the end. Soundtrack is seriously next level beautiful and hardcore. Had my jaw on the floor at certain points I won’t spoil. Overall an improvement over OT1 but I refuse to compare them too harshly haha.
- Visions of Mana - My 1st Mana game was a joy to complete. The demo doesn’t do it justice for whatever reason. The world is great. And learning about the themes of the Mana games, I have a newfound appreciation for them. Hope to see even more hit Xbox. Good soundtrack with a few standout tracks. There’s a couple interesting and odd things going on with the story but don’t overhype it, maybe go in with low expectations if you can. I was still surprised by some stuff. Some stuff is as generic as it gets and then other things…I’ll just say I was surprised by.
- Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance - My 1st proper SMT game! I was excited to play a very dark and oppressive JRPG and this game delivered. It was a blast taking everything I’ve learned from Persona combat and applying it to SMT VV. Some key differences but most of it helped me out. I love gods and mythology and this game focused on a lot of that. The game really made me think a lot. And yeah I enjoyed zipping around the world and platforming.
- Unicorn Overlord - My most enjoyable 1000G of the year. The world exploration was a blast, loved seeing the incredible hand drawn backgrounds and character art. The game might be easy but I found a way to make an early portion very difficult for myself haha.
- Grandia HD Collection - I’m so glad I was finally able to cross Grandia 1 & 2 off of my JRPG to-do list. G1 was a neat look back at a Saturn/PS1 era game. The English VA is bad but I had a good time with it, if it bugs you then switch to JP. G1 is a good example of what a young boy would think of when going on a fantasy adventure. I wish there was an option to turn off the smoothing filter in G1 but I got used to it. Grandia 2 was interesting to see what a JRPG was like on the Dreamcast. Better VA than 1, the colors really pop and I think I overall enjoyed it a lot more than G1. I liked the characters a lot more too. I won’t hype up the story but it also did some things that might have been uncommon for the time. Some cool stuff.
- Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake - This game just barely snuck into my top 10 but it’s a cozy ass game I wanted to play around the holidays. It’s also HARD AS HELL. I think I finally get Dragon Quest and I’m slowly replaying DQ11 and appreciating it a lot more. Toriyama’s art looks amazing in the HD2D style. I can finally appreciate the music for the DQ series, it’s arranged very nicely here. Also wild that the NES version had a day/night cycle and that continues here. My biggest recommendation for this game is once you get the party, drop those suckers off and go and build your own. Think of some names that can fit their class/job. That way you feel an attachment to the created party. DQ1&2 Remake shot up my most anticipated when I wasn’t very excited for it earlier in the year. DQ forever baby!
- Legend of Mana - What a surprise to get this game on Xbox. Technically a spin-off in the Mana series, this game is insane with what systems they built and how they interlink. 100% completion is a stressful guide-intensive undertaking but unless you want to do multiple playthroughs, you will miss things. The worst thing about the game is it discouraged me from talking to NPCs for fear of starting or ending other quests. Ok on to the good stuff: again some of the best hand drawn background with some great pixel art characters. This is how I prefer it. A Yoko Shimomura soundtrack is always a joy to listen to. The real meat of the game is the side stories which range from incredibly touching and heartfelt, to weird, to dumb, to bizarre, sad, crazy and silly.
- Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess - You ever hear of weird combinations of food that sound disgusting but people swear taste very good? Is peanut butter and pickles a thing? (Not recommending but I feel like I’ve heard people suggest something gross like that) anyways a tower defense, escort mission, RTS hack and slash game sounds like that to me. The game is beautiful. I love the creatures inspired from Japanese mythology. They’re freaky and scary and night time in the game is stressful as hell because of them. The loop is fun but my favorite part is the village sections. A chance to build stuff up, feed the Goddess some sweets, pet the wildlife and just hang out in the village I stressed out saving from corruption. The game is brutal and punishing though. It will rock you.
Incredible year for JRPGs in general and on Xbox. Side note with my list, I 1000G’ed all of these games so I really feel I saw most/all of what they have to offer. A lot of these games/series had their 1st appearance on Xbox and I’m just glad to be able to finally experience them